Ronson has a talent for picking out quirky characters and fringe topics and knitting them together with sharp (and, frequently, cutting) prose. In The Psychopath Test, he mingles with Scientologists, denizens of Broadmoor (an English psychiatric hospital once known as Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum), David Shayler (the former MI5 spy turned conspiracy theorist turned messiah), and numerous other intriguing individuals. Although he describes himself as highly anxious, Ronson does not shy away from awkwardness in his interviews or skewering those with whom he disagrees.

This makes for entertaining reading, but I worry that it may lead to distortions and this is where my main issue with the book comes. Ronson’s central goal seems to debunk (or at least) unsettle the psychiatric establishment. He aims to show that the insiders of what he refers to as “the madness industry” are themselves mad and that fairly normal people end up being labeled and destroyed by a system riddled with problems. But Ronson doesn’t use the tools of science to accomplish his task. Indeed, his account is profoundly unscientific.

Rather than really engaging the research, Ronson relies on interviews with scientists, patients, and others—and it often seems that he uses these interviews to build support for his preset conclusions, rather than allowing his investigations to drive his theory, or lets his theory be driven by his personal reactions to the players involved (i.e., this guy is a jerk, therefore his research is rubbish). Consider Ronson’s epiphany concerning “what a mutually passionate and sometimes dysfunctional bubble the relationship between therapist and client can be.” The spark and proof for this statement is the fact that one psychiatrist, Gary Maier, who he interviewed “sounded mournful, defensive, and utterly convinced of himself” when arguing that psychopath patients who later reoffended after his treatment program was shut down did so because the dissolution of the program suggested to them that the therapy was ineffective. Ronson may be right about the “sometimes dysfunctional bubble” but he hasn’t made his case at all.

Perhaps more worrisome is the haphazard way Ronson goes about wielding the 20-item Hare Psychopathy Checklist noting whenever he comes across someone—an arrogant CEO, a reviewer who crossed him, etc.—who seems to show signs of one item or another. Certainly that’s part of the point (that such checklists can be used haphazardly), but I often got the sense that Ronson genuinely believed, after having taken a three-day course, that he was now able to spot the psychopaths in our midst. And overall I thought he gave short shrift to the training and experience that go into wielding the DSM. A layperson flipping through the manual will immediately diagnose his spouse with 15 conditions; a trained psychologist will not.

So, my final verdict? Check out one of Ronson’s other books instead — he’s a talented writer but this book left me feeling cold (which may or may not make me a psychopath).

3 Responses to “The Psychopath Test”

I recommend Ronson’s latest book with the same caveat I would his others — Reader, form your own conclusions.
Don’t expect him to give you all the answers, and any answers he seems to give, take with a grain of salt.

That’s Jon Ronson’s unique style of reportage. I don’t think Ronson goes in with a preconceived notion of what he expects the reader to take away; on the contrary I think he posits his conclusions in a blurred way that leaves them open to interpretation. I believe he wants wants things untidy and unresolved so his audience will take up the reigns and pursue whatever open end grabs their fancy. Along the way he does paint his own opinions and biases, as did his obvious Gonzo precursor, Hunter Thompson.

Not long ago I created a blog about Ronson, http://www.JonRonsonSaves.com, as a forum for discussing his latest works as well as going off into tangents about items from The Men Who Stare at Goats and THEM. I’m a fan of his writing but not an apologist, and not a promoter in the sense that I gain anything from him or the blog. I just think his topics are interesting!